Recently, displays have been evolving towards high-level integration and low cost. With the development of the Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) technology, especially due to increasingly higher requirements on narrow rims in small-size screens, the use of the Gate On Array (GOA) technique becomes more frequently. The GOA technique can integrate a gate switch driving circuit onto an array substrate of a display panel, such that a separate gate driving integrated circuit component can be omitted. In this way, the material cost and the manufacture cost of a display apparatus can be reduced and the rims of the panel can be narrowed, thereby providing panels in conformity to the trend of technical development.
During the production of a TFT-LCD, defects associated with a GOA circuit often occur in a display panel. In a parsing process, it is required to test characteristics of TFTs in the GOA circuit and/or output signals from the GOA circuit, so as to confirm the cause of the defect. However, due to the difference in mask designs for different display panels, in a parsing process for a display panel with a GOA circuit, it is typically difficult to test characteristics of individual TFTs within the GOA circuit and the output signals from the GOA circuit, and thus difficult to determine the location and cause of the defect. Furthermore, in order to test the output signals from the GOA circuit, it is conventionally required to pry a corner of a color filter substrate away before testing, which has a very low rate of success and may damage the GOA circuit of the display panel such that no more testing can be performed.